Activity Reporting
Partners’ reports and decision-making
Partners’ reporting should be seen as a communication tool that provides useful, well formatted information to the people who need it. Reporting allows the relevant people to make decisions around learning, accountability and improvement. The key decisions informed by reports might be:
Management of this Activity (immediate learning and improvement)
- Corrective action or reprioritisation of resources within existing budget, including amendment of the design (e.g. logical framework matrix) and workplan
- Requests for additional resources
- Modifications to other activities (NZAID’s or others’) impacting on this Activity
- Performance management of individuals and organisations
- Approval of payments.
Management of other Activities or Programmes (broader learning and improvement)
- Translation of learning, experimental results or pilots to other contexts
- Reprioritisation of resources between NZAID Programmes
- Development of new policies or Programme Strategies
- Skills and knowledge development for NZAID staff and partners.
Accountability-related decisions for improvement
- Future levels of official development assistance (ODA) (i.e. budgets)
- Policy directions for ODA (i.e. focus, approach, or need for a review)
- Timely alert to risk and possible fraud
- Elections (voters’ decisions - the ultimate accountability for the government).
Partner’s Activity reports are used in a variety of ways to inform the full range of the decisions above. However, the content, format and level of detail of reports need to be carefully tailored to meet the most important information needs of the decision-makers who the reports are intended for. Most Activity reporting is rightly focused on the first set of decisions, i.e. managing the particular Activity being reported on. However, Activity reporting needs to be good enough to alert managers to the possibility of broader learning (which might prompt a specific review or evaluation).
At certain points, particularly completion, partners’ Activity reporting also needs to contribute to overall assessments of the contribution to outcomes and cost effectiveness of NZAID’s programmes. When filling this role, Activity reporting forms a vital link in the accountability chain that informs high level decisions such as the size and focus of the ODA budget.
It is important to note that some information that is often provided in reports is not needed for decision-making and can be dropped. NZAID needs to resist micro-managing Activities, asking for information it does not need, and taking or influencing decisions that are more appropriately taken by the implementing partner. Excessive detail can obscure or substitute the information that is actually required. Overly long and detailed reporting that focuses on details of implementation and inputs is a significant problem for many aid agencies and partners - and is often unread.